


stolen goods

by wemadguys



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Developing Relationship, Episode: s03e03 Murder and Mozzarella, F/M, Introspection, Jack is thinking, POV Jack Robinson, Season/Series 03, considering, many thoughts head full and all that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28509588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wemadguys/pseuds/wemadguys
Summary: He wants to rest his head on her shoulder at the end of a long day, wants to provide her with the same comfort. Feels like he could if only she’d let him. If only they’d both let go. But they can't seem to get there, too busy chafing at the hypothetical confines of a relationship that neither expected nor wished for.~An introspective explanation for the change in Jack's behavior by the end/following the events of the murder and the mozzarella.
Relationships: Concetta Fabrizzi/Jack Robinson, Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	stolen goods

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Everything You've Heard is True](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26778820) by [wemadguys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wemadguys/pseuds/wemadguys). 



> hello! still working on the last chapter of HML, but I had some inspiration this morning on a different story. i find myself a bit obsessed with murder and the mozzarella. it's such a pivotal and revealing episode that is played out almost frustratingly quietly.
> 
> this story does bear some resemblance to my very first mfmm fic, [Everything You've Heard is True](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26778820), so it might be fun to read them alongside each other. I wrote the beginning of this around the same time as that one, and they deliberately have mirrored thoughts and overviews of the evolution of their relationship from both POVs.
> 
> hope you guys enjoy!

“Have you thought about it, Gianni? She asks him, her voice warm and low and smooth. “What I am offering to you?”

"I've thought of nothing else."

***

Jack had long thought himself something of a cynic; Rosie used to accuse him of it as well. He had seen it all, been through it all: gone through a courtship so sweet and traditional he could write the book on it, been to war and seen the ultimate suffering, a years-long nightmare. 

He had come home from war full of knives – sharp cheekbones replacing the roundness of youth, cutting sense of humor with bents toward the cynical and the macabre, and a piercing gaze that for all its intensity he kept deliberately inscrutable. And his only salve has been investigating the worst on offer in Australia's former capital city.

He has been luckier than most, though. After the war, he continued to find pleasure in many things: in a warm spring day, in a decadent meal, in expensive suits and engrossing books. And despite his daily dealings with their worst motives, their cruelest acts, and their most duplicitous natures, he found himself delighting in people as well. He still appreciated a good conversation, admired a young couple's infatuation and unabashed hope for their lives. 

He just came to realize that such hope was no longer for him.

But then Phryne waltzed into his life, obliterating his one constant: his self-control. Thinking himself inured to her blatant charms, he let his guard down. Conversation with her was cerebral and endlessly entertaining. She was constantly stimulating his mind and appreciating his sarcastic bent. It was intoxicating.

Before he knew it, her particular brand of intelligence and brass had completely disarmed him. It seems he is forever a green constable circling her, looking for evidence to charge her with, and she is the scrappy street criminal always one step ahead, laughing as she shows off stolen goods like a trophy.

But tonight, Concetta, with her dark and earnest eyes, states so obvious a truth: "Your heart, it’s taken." Taken indeed. Stolen, as far as he's concerned. Wrenched from his grasp one crime scene and sly smile at a time.

What Concetta offers is companionship. Blind devotion. Domesticity. Safety. It's what he might have expected to have in his life before meeting Phryne. Indeed, he would have taken these factors into consideration when deciding to court any woman, and lord knows that with Phryne virtually none of it is on offer. He’d resigned himself to that some time after reconciling with her following the Gertie Haynes case. She takes unnecessary risks, she can be careless, she will never feel for him as strongly as he feels for her – and he loves her madly. Hopelessly. 

But self-preservation is a funny thing. 

After she’d wrapped her arms around him on a motorbike, literally attaching herself to him and forcing him to accept her back into his life, accept her he had. There was nothing for it, he’d realised. And it was only a matter of time before his resigned acceptance spurred him into action. The night they saved those girls from the clutches of Sydney Fletcher, he was ready to go to her, to put himself at her mercy. She holds his heart in her hand, he’d figured, and it is only right that he follow its heavy beat. To give her whatever she wants, be it one night or – well, he’d hardly allowed himself to consider beyond that at the time.

They were thwarted; of course they were. But in due time, they tried again. Dinner. And again he was reminded of the unfairness of the arrangement. He waited for her in her parlour downing drink after drink to quiet his own agitation. He had been at a loss; he would greedily accept all she had to give, would easily surrender to her everything he had, and yet she had thwarted his expectations again by simply not showing up.

They are so in sync at times. He feels like he understands her in the way she understands him. They work well. Not identically, but in tandem. They can talk for hours about the largest and smallest of matters. He wants to rest his head on her shoulder at the end of a long day and wants to provide her with the same comfort. Feels like he could if only she’d let him. If only they’d both let go. But they can't seem to get there, too busy chafing at the hypothetical confines of a relationship that neither expected nor wished for. 

But Concetta. Dear, beautiful Concetta. She’s offering everything to him, all of herself. No hedging, no metaphors, no reticence, no strategy involved. And he finds himself truly considering it.

"Your heart, it's taken."

Even as she says it, he tries to fight against the truth of it. "I care for you." _My heart may not be mine, but my duty, my devotion, remain my own to give._

It is, of course, not enough for her. 

He accepts her terms in a daze, his mind buzzing. He and the bottle of wine she hands him sit outside Strano’s in the police motorcar for untold minutes, thinking of Phryne in terms both oblique and direct. Where do they go from here? They have tried and tried to come together, but one or the other of them continues to stand in their way. Perhaps they are doomed to live in this sort of purgatory indefinitely, never able to move forward or break apart.

He’s just so tired of this feeling in his chest, a wound once raw and gaping now hollow, empty, and scarred over. His hurt is familiar, lived-in. He thinks of her behavior this week. The secret meeting with Concetta and the pointed comments about his sleep habits. He wishes he was sure it was envy for his affections that spurred them, but he's not. She's tenacious in her curiosity, his love. Thorough.

Phryne once accused him of possessing a heart as deep as the pacific ocean. Perhaps she’s right. But if that’s the case, then his waters are clear and blue, the kind that allow you to see all the way to the bottom. Her waters are just as deep, he knows this, but they’re murkier. There are drop-offs and sneaker waves and sharp rocks hidden beneath the surface. Treading carefully through them is a matter of survival. 

They’re just so different, he and Phryne. She’s right about him being a romantic – all to his own detriment, he’s sure. He’s careful and measured in his life and in his work, but love makes him reckless. She makes him reckless. He knows if he needed to he’d throw everything away for her. His peace of mind. His job. His own sodding life.

Just the thought tends to make him feel pathetic because, while Phryne would likely die for him as well (and almost did once), it’s only because she’d do so for anyone. For him, for any one of her thousands of friends, for some stranger on the street. It’s who she is. She’s always calling him noble or honourable, but it’s she who is the true protector of innocents. How can he possibly ask someone like her, someone who cares more deeply about the plight of man than anyone he’s ever known – someone who loves people in all their forms and with all their warts and scars – to prize him above others?

He – he can’t.

He simply can’t. The thought comes to him swiftly and decidedly. Something like a revelation. He can’t. He can never ask that of her. Not only is doing so unfair and uncharitable; it’s beside the point.

It all comes back to Concetta’s words, he finds. “Your heart, it’s taken.” Taken. Stolen out from under him by the cleverest, most exceptional person he’s ever known. Kind, generous, heroic to a fault. Phryne. It’s a rather ungenerous picture to paint of her. Though she is certainly not above petty theft, she is no stealer of hearts She never asked for his just as he never asked for hers. He finds himself thinking of her hand on his chest. “ _Promise me you’ll be careful, too.”_ They have always been partners, equals, in everything. Perhaps this is no different.

After all, so what if it was taken, stolen, plucked, cajoled, or coaxed? He still ends every day alone and hers in every way that counts. Not even the pure, unvarnished love and devotion of a beautiful woman can sway him. _How_ it happened is irrelevant, little more than semantics, in the face of the monumental, irrefutable fact of it.

Yes, self-preservation really is a funny thing. But Jack finds he’s finally ready to shed it like a snake does its skin, ready to stop feeling like a victim in all this. His heart may well have been taken. But the one thing he has never done – has been too terrified to even consider – is freely give it.

_“Do you have a friend, inspector?”_

_“He has at least one.”_

It’s time he let her know that she has one, too.

With a sense of peace he has not felt in, oh, something like a year and a half, Jack starts his engine, turns onto Melbourne’s dark streets, and sets out to right a wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading :)
> 
> also i don't think i've ever shared my tumblr on here. i'm @cleverwench, though i follow (back) on my main @we-mad-guys.


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